Hidden Parts of Life
by Sull89
Summary: In Amestris, not everything is as it seems. People, reasons, hopes, and dreams: they all change. This set of drabbles, based off inspiration from various sources, delves into what happened when we weren't able to see.
1. Overachiever

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 2_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s):** Edward Elric and Hohenheim Elric.  
**Song:** "Overachiever," by Louden Swain

**Song Excerpt:**  
Ask my Mom and believe her  
When she says I was an overachiever  
A cool demeanor  
In its place there's a fever  
There's a boy he's alive  
He's a little eager beaver

Ask my Mom and believe her  
When she says I was an overachiever  
Why did he leave her  
In his place there's a fever  
There's a boy he's alive  
He's alive he's a leader

**Drabble:**  
When his father left for good, Edward was still a young boy, who up until that point had been full of optimism, hope, and joy. He was a young boy who idolized Hohenheim Elric and wanted to be just like him, in every way possible. So the day he packed up and walked away from his family, Ed felt his whole world come undone.

Where his youthful enthusiasm for life and simple pleasures had once lain, a new hunger rose up, one which lusted for power and knowledge and a way to prove himself. The carefree boy of those years passed was gone, replaced by one who couldn't seem to do anything but study, and who absorbed every word of his alchemy texts like they were his Bible.

Even though Trisha, his mother, spent most of her time with her head in the clouds, dreaming about her long gone husband, she did manage to notice how driven her oldest son had become, realizing more and more with every day that passed that he was almost desperate to impress her with his alchemy, desperate to upstage the father that left him alone.

Trisha had to sigh, her eyes sad behind the smile that masked them, as the little blond haired boy drew another transmutation circle before her; he really had become such an overachiever.

* * *

This is the first FullMetal Alchemist story in my song-themed 30 Day Drabble Challenge, which, unsurprisingly enough, was a drabble a day for thirty days. Not all 30 Days were FullMetal Alchemist stories, which is why the numbering on the drabbles isn't consecutive. But, please, just take them all as individual stories, enjoy them, and let me know what you think!


	2. Foolish Pride

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 3_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s):** One sided Maes/Roy  
**Song:** "Layla," by Eric Clapton

**Song Excerpt:**  
What'll you do when you get lonely  
And nobody's waiting by your side?  
You've been running and hiding much too long.  
You know it's just your foolish pride.

**Drabble:**  
Roy Mustang had never put much thought into his playboy life while he was caught up in the middle of it. The myriad numbers of women were just a distraction, a paltry excuse he used to stop him from thinking about everything, thinking about anything, and for a few years it had actually worked. 

Maybe it wasn't the best way to do things, but it was the way he chose. Even with those women he felt alone, but the one person he wanted to stand at his side wasn't anyone that he felt could return the feeling. Sure, they had shared a few quick, hungry kisses and a few hard fucks throughout the long battles of the Ishballan War, but men did desperate things when faced with death and destruction every day. 

So when the war ended, and the fling seemed as though it was over, Roy's pride stopped him from seeing if he could actually turn it into a real relationship, with someone who actually cared about him. He avoided the subject at all costs and pasted a smile onto his face every time he saw the man who had, somehow, turned into his best friend. It hurt more than he could even really say, to hear Maes refer to him as such but nothing more, but he dealt with it, too scared of what the result might be if he tried to take it further. 

Then the day came that Maes stood at the end of an aisle, watching as a woman clad in white walked toward him, a veil nestled in her hair and flowers clasped in her hands. As Roy stood at his friend's side, that same smile pasted onto his face, he could only think about how his pride had taken away what might have been his only chance to be truly happy. 

So when those nights came, and he was in the throes of passion with the nameless, faceless woman of the night, he could pretend he was with someone else, pretend his pride hadn't taken his only happiness from him, and pretend that the one he shared his bed with was someone far more masculine.


	3. Feel For You

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 4_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s):** Dante/Lust  
**Song:** "Feel for You," by Nightwish

**Song Excerpt:**  
Barely cold in her grave  
Barely warm in my bed  
Settling for a draw tonight  
Puppet girl, your strings are mine

This one is for you, for you  
Only for you  
Just give in to it never think again  
I feel for you

**Drabble:**  
Dante had always been proud of her small but deadly collection of homunculi, but it wasn't until Lust came along that she felt herself smitten with one of them. The newest addition to her little militant force was even more gorgeous than her name would imply, and the first time Dante saw the luscious, perfectly curved form of her new body, it was all she could do to stop herself from taking Lust right then. 

Telling herself that waiting would be worth it, Dante trained her newest soldier to do her bidding, watching as the coldly pristine goddess went about her work and taking in every detail when she saw Lust flaunt her perfect figure to gain the information she wanted (be it from women or men) and then using that those visions to sate her appetite until Dante felt as though she could get her own hands on that flesh. 

The first time Dante approached Lust with physical intimacy in mind, Lust was almost repulsed; Dante could tell. But the older woman pushed on anyway, taking what she believed was rightfully hers, marring that perfect body with marks and bruises she knew would fade almost as soon as she lay them on that cold marble skin. The fact that they vanished so soon isn't what mattered though, but rather that she could put them there and her deadly toy couldn't do a thing about it; that's what got her off. 

And that's what kept pulling her back to Lust as well. This exotic woman, this elegant killer, when she slept with anyone else was free to kill them at the end if they upset her, but with her Master, Lust suddenly became the puppet, dangling at the end of Dante's strings made of wishes and whims, and she couldn't do a thing about it.

Finally, after Dante had taken her body time and time again, Lust finally came to feel what it was like for all those she toyed with.


	4. Getting Back Up

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 5_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s):** Roy  
**Song:** "One-X," by Three Days Grace

**Song Excerpt:**  
The life I think about  
Is so much better than this  
I never thought I'd be stuck in this mess  
I'm sick of wondering  
Is it life or death  
I need to figure out who's behind me

We are the ones  
We get knocked down  
We get back up and stand above the crowd  
We are one  
We are the ones  
We get knocked down  
We get back up and stand above the crowd  
We are one

**Drabble:**  
His past was difficult, full of the death of innocents and the screams of the damned. Sometimes, he couldn't even tell if those screams belonged to the people he fought, or were just echoes inside his own mind. When he first joined the military things weren't like this, he had expected something much different, something much more right. He never expected the career that he thought would lead him to glory would sweep his feet out from under him and shoot him in the head.

He had a better life planned for himself, a better future, one that would lead to prosperity and happiness, not murder and misery. By the end of the Ishballan Conflict, he had to wonder; was this world he moved through really life, or in truth, rank and decaying death? The longer he survived the battles and the more people he killed, the more soldiers he saw turn tail and run and the more alchemists he saw go crazy with the ferocity of their powers, the more he felt what was once his life disintegrate around him.

By the time the conflict had ended and they were all shipped back to Central, a shiny new metal on their jackets and resentment and growing instability in their minds, Roy Mustang was almost sure this couldn't be his life, couldn't be his present, past, or future. The world he saw around him was so strange and surreal now that his own mind couldn't make sense of the calm, joyus faces around him.

He was out of place, out of hope, and out of time. He'd never planned to get so fucked up, especially not this early in his life, but somehow it had happened anyway. Yet, the reasons why still alluded him, to this very day. There was no rhyme or reason to Ishbal, no excuse for the unleashing of thousands of armed troops and alchemists against a region of people who didn't believe in hurting others just for one's own good. 

Roy never thought that he would get stuck in this mess and then the day came that he was finally ready to end it all. He had the gun set out on the table, there if he needed it, but the last time he had tried his courage had fled, leaving him like a mangy dog with his tail always tucked between his legs. So, as he scribed the transmutation circle down, he watched the curves and whorls it made across the surface, content that this was something he could do.

But then, after a smartass comment that he probably hadn't thought through well enough before he said it, a hefty fist that hit him right between the eyes finally brought him back to his senses, snapping him out of the desperate hole he had been in for who knows how long, and showed him that there really was someone who would stand with him no matter what. 

The military might have knocked him down, but suddenly, Maes pulled him back up and Roy Mustang stood on his feet once again, vowing that somehow, someday, he would get to the top and make sure that no one, soldier or civilian, would have to go through the same things he did for no reason at all.


	5. The Greatest Thing

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 8_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s):** Elysia  
**Song: **"Nature Boy," by David Bowie

**Song Excerpt:**  
While we spoke  
Of many things  
Fools and kings  
This he said to me  
The greatest thing  
You'll ever learn  
Is just to love and  
Be loved in return

**Drabble:**  
My father died about twenty years ago. I was around six when it happened, nothing more than a little girl who thought her daddy must have known everything and her mother must have been able to do no wrong. But the day I found out he had been shot, everything just collapsed, and all I can remember is asking my mommy why they were burying my dad. 

It was hard for my mom to answer me, but looking back on it now, I can't imagine how it could have been any other way. He was the love of her life and along with me, we were her everything. Dad meant the world to me, too; he was my own personal story teller, my own fortune teller, and the one person who I knew could answer every single question I could possibly have. I remember constantly running up to him and tugging on his pant leg, asking him to explain the newest thing I heard or saw and without fail he would always smile and scoop me into his arms, laughing as he answered my question.

There was one day that still stands out clear in my mind; I had just finished reading Rapunzel, and I was confused as to why someone would try to keep a poor girl locked up in a tower, so I went to ask dad about it. He sat me down and we had what I now term the "fools and kings" talk, where he told me of things such as jealousy, spite, greed, and hate, but as to not scare me, countered them with as joy, care, hope, and most importantly, he said, love. 

I don't remember all of the conversation, not the specifics at least, but there is one phrase that still echoes in my mind, just as crystal clear today as the day he said it to me, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." I didn't know it then, but years down the road, those words were going to be everything to me. 

It was hard, when he died, but I held on; not because I knew there was nothing else to do, but because I knew he would want me to. I took his words to heart though, and swore that I would do everything I could to make my dad proud of me. So as I stand here today, clad in this white dress, a bouquet of flowers clasped in my slightly sweaty palms, I remind myself of his words, and somehow I know that my daddy is here too, smiling as I walk down the aisle, proud because I learned to love and be loved in return. 


	6. Replacement

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 11_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s):**Lust/Riza Onesided!Riza/Roy  
**Song: **"Hey Baby," by No Doubt.

**Song Excerpt:**  
When you rock your hips you know that it amazes me.  
Got me off the hook and nothing else can faze me.  
Can you be my one and only sunshine lady?

**Drabble:**  
It was obvious to everyone but Roy Mustang himself that his ever loyal subordinate, the sharpshooter with the eyes of a hawk, was in love with him from almost day one. Her undying devotion and concern for the man glowed ever warm in her eyes every day, but he never noticed and she kept to protocol by never mentioning it.

But even as such a stern stickler for military rules, there were some things that Riza just needed. When the affection she felt for the one man in her life that really meant anything to her wasn't returned, she looked for companionship elsewhere; she would never call what she shared with the moon-skinned temptress of the night love, but it was better than the nothing she had before. 

So as she lay tangled between the sheets of her bed, in the small apartment she shared with no one but her dog, with a woman of surreal beauty made up of soft rounded curves and harsh, sharp lines at the same time, Riza finally managed to find some form of solace. Later that night, when they switched places, the feeling of those gorgeous hips rocking against her was enough to fill the void in her chest, at least for a little while. 

The woman who called herself Selene was cold in so many different ways, but somehow she managed to warm something within Riza that had never been touched before. It wasn't sunshine, but something close to it that spread through her as the two women rolled together in her sheets, and for those altogether too brief times, the longing she felt for Roy Mustang didn't faze her so much anymore. 

Maybe the woman's name should really have been Lust. 


	7. Crimson House

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 12_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s):**Roy  
**Song: **"Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks," by Panic! At The Disco

**Song Excerpt:**  
I am  
Alone, in this bedroom  
She never fixes this  
But at least she...

**Drabble:**  
When he first got back from the war, he kept to himself, lost in his own internal world of burning pain and earsplitting screams. As time went on though, he felt himself growing cold and numb, and that's when the visits to the brothels started; they were few and far apart at first, but as he grew more accustomed to the ways and the women, his trips to the Crimson House grew more frequent. 

He could have looked for the decent women that lived in Central, those that weren't paid to pleasure men, but he didn't have it in him to go though the intricate dance of dating and he felt as though he had no right to burden those unsuspecting girls with his dark past. So he found his solace in the flighty temptresses of the night, those that would do anything he wanted without speaking a single word. 

There was one in particular, a spry and flexible girl his aged named Sylvia, whom he returned to on an almost bi-nightly basis. She was a business woman to the core, demanding her payment beforehand, but the second she had her money secreted away she was all seductive smiles and teasing touches and in no time at all, she had Roy hard.

As her hands caressed his chest and her mouth surrounded his throbbing erection, he felt himself slip just a tad farther away from the darkness that always threatened to consume him. When she slid her hips up and they joined into one being, he felt the white heat of passion course through him, pushing the darkness back even more as she rode him, crying out his name in a mockery of love.

When his orgasm finally burned through him, for just a moment the darkness was gone and he could breathe again. But then, as he slid his pants back on and his vision cleared, it returned. By the time he left the House, it had settled about him again, like a mantle around his shoulders and as he returned home to his cold bed and curled up in it alone, he felt it consume him again. 

She could never fix it, but at least… as least she could make it disappear for a little while...


	8. Not Falling Apart

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 13_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist**  
Pairing/Character(s): **Maes/Roy**  
Song: **"Not Falling Apart," by Maroon 5

**Song Excerpt:**  
Now, I can't walk, I can't talk anymore  
Since you walked out the door  
And now I'm stuck living out that night again  
I'm not falling apart

**Drabble:**  
He didn't drink to wash it away, he didn't smoke to make it disappear, and he certainly didn't mark up his skin to bleed out the pain, but he did think about something worse. As he held the gun in his hands for the second time, watching the metal gleam under the harsh fluorescent light, he could only wonder if death would be as blissfully blank as everyone always said it was.

When he pressed the cold end of the barrel to his skin, he thought back to that night, just like he always did. It was all he could see when he closed his eyes, all that filled his mind when the lights went down and it haunted him every moment of his life. He couldn't escape the nightmare of watching the only person he loved walk out the door, of watching the only person he ever cared for leave him.

It was hard for him to talk at all, to himself or others. It was even harder for him to get himself out of bed every morning, but he did it anyway, knowing that he had no other choice. But now, now he had a choice; he could pull the trigger, the smooth and deadly machine under his hand would warm slightly, and then it would be all over – or he could put it down, cowardly like he always did, and go on living.

After long, painful moments of indecision, he moved his hand, and let the gun fall to the bed as a single tear fell; he wasn't going to let himself fall apart again, not this time.


	9. Nothing Is

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 14_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Riza/Winry  
**Song: **"Sanctuary," by Utada Hikaru

**Song Excerpt:**  
You show me how to see,  
That nothing is whole and nothing is broken.

**Drabble:**  
It had taken her a long time to pull herself back together after Edward left for the final time; she was quiet and withdrawn, very unlike her usual self and it showed in everything she did. All the people who knew her tried to make things better yet they couldn't, as Winry would just brush them off every time. Her grandmother, her customers, and even Den had done everything they could but as time went on it was obvious that the young woman wasn't getting any better.

Then the day came that the newly promoted Captain Hawkeye walked into the Rockbell household, and from then on things started to change for both her and the mechanic she went to see. That first meeting was a little awkward and tense, but something about it broke through Winry's shell and gave her something she needed to pull herself from her sadness.

As time went on the visits between the two women grew more frequent; both would seek out special jobs or assignments that would take them to the other. Months passed as the bond between them grew, until one day Winry suddenly pressed her lips, soft and chaste, against Riza's. She didn't know what made her do it, but when the Captain's hand came up and gently cupped the back of her neck as she returned the tentative gesture, Winry was more than happy that something did.

From that moment on, things just seemed to happen in a whirlwind. A few weeks later, Winry found herself naked and between the sheets of the older woman's bed, her mind in a heady haze as the skilled sharpshooter showed her, for the first time, what it was like to make love to another. When she lay curled in Riza'a arms after the fact, half asleep and so content, she realized with a shock that she was finally truly happy for the first time since Edward had gone.

So it came as a shock to hardly anyone when Winry moved to Central. Boarding with her "friend," she set up an automail shop within the city and from then on, lived out her days surrounded by oil and machinery and her nights in the loving embrace of the one person who could finally make her feel whole. Without realizing it, Riza had shown her that even though she missed Ed and always would, things would never be completely broken.


	10. The Real Beast

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 16_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist**  
Pairing/Character(s): **Dante  
**Song: **"Beauty of the Beast," by Nightwish

**Song Excerpt:**  
Trees have dropped their leaves,  
Clouds their waters  
All this burden is killing me

Distance is covering your way,  
Tears your memory  
All this beauty is killing me

**Drabble:**

Dante prided herself on being a strong, resourceful woman, always ready and willing to take on whatever came her way. She was a master at the games of manipulation and deceit, using those wily skills to make sure things always went how she had planned. Her homunculi were her weapons, each one carefully constructed to function in the most useful manner, and each one deadly.

With all this at her disposal, it seemed to everyone who knew who she really was that she was unstoppable, but Dante knew her own weakness; that cursed man who left her and their son to build a better family, the man whom made her with child and then left not long after: Hohenheim. He was the reason she was doing everything she has been, and also the only one who would ever have been able to stop her.

The distance between them now was great, covered over by the countless falling of autumn leaves and the never-ending storms of endless springs. The lonely torment she went through over the centuries was constant, the simpering of ignorant humans in love sickening her every time she saw it. He had left her, his first wife – his real wife, with such a large burden; expecting her to craft a Philosopher's Stone on her own.

The strain of it was starting to kill her; that much was obvious by the startlingly rapid deterioration of her new body. When she thought of his desertion her blood boiled and the beauty of the world around her was suddenly glaringly bright and altogether too happy. Dante couldn't accept that others could be in love, be with the person they cared about when she couldn't, and to remedy that she decided to take that beauty away from them as well.

Rather than let the smiling young couples caught up in lust and new love and the elderly spouses still holding winkled hands hurt her anymore she tore that beauty from them one by one, her homunculi paving the way for her to regain some measure of her own happiness.


	11. Under An August Moon

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 18_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Kimbley  
**Song: **"August Moon," by The 69 Eyes

**Song Excerpt:**  
In August moon - let me follow you  
In August moon - let me follow you down  
Let me follow you down

Down to the Seven Seas, places I'll never be  
Down to the Seven Seas, places I'll never be

**Drabble:**

Kimbley was a nihilist, even if he himself never bothered to put a name to the ways in which he thought; he didn't care about people or possessions, nor did he believe that all the "values" that most humans went on about were really of any use at all. In fact, he felt that humanity as a whole was pretty useless so every time his hands blew another poor soul to smithereens he was actually helping them.

Serial bomber that he was, Kimbley loved the cover that nightfall gave him. Lit by the August moon hovering overhead at a thin crescent, he walked by the water's edge in Aquroya, taking a little break from the mission Central Headquarters sent him on. As he looked out over the inland sea that the city was built on, he couldn't help but smirk; water muffled the sounds of an explosion quiet well.

With that sinister thought in mind, he decided that it was time for a little fun. Turning into an alleyway, he started searching for any living creature; a human, preferably, but right now much anything would do. Kimbley found himself in luck very soon, to his delight, and accosted a quite attractive woman within a few minutes.

She didn't even realize he was behind her until Kimbley had her shoved up against the wall and her skirt yanked halfway up her hips. He made quick work of her, doing nothing to stop her screams, just laughing as he drank the sounds in and ravished her body. By the time he finished, she was in tears and crying out for help without a sound, her voice shot from all the screams and pained shouts.

Smirking into her face, he tucked himself away and then stripped her of her clothes completely, grabbing her arm and forcing her toward the water's edge, whispering as he did, "Promise I'll show you places you never thought you'd be." With that, he used his alchemy to turn her shirt into a strand of rope and bound her hands together behind her back, then threw her into the cold sea, laughing as he waded in after her.

Watching her struggle aroused everything in him; it was all he could do to act, rather than just watch her. But act he did, yanking her against his body and then forcing her under the water, laughing again as he watched her struggle to reach the air she needed to live. Stroking her hair in a parody of comfort, he slipped her farther under as he spoke, "Let me follow you down; it'll make things so much better."

He dove under then, placing his tattooed hands against her breasts, and with a maniac glint in his eyes, activated them, turning her into a ticking time bomb. With one more quick transmutation he increased the weight of her body, watching as she sank farther under the water, twisting and flailing in every direction as she tried to free herself. He stayed under the surface longer, waiting to see his handiwork come to fruition.

It happened suddenly, rocking the water around both of them violently, his man made explosion ripping the woman apart without a sound as the waves crashed over Kimbley. Smirking, he finally surfaced, watching the water turn red underneath him and laughing as he dismembered body spread throughout the frigid water.

His work was beautiful, it really was. It was the only thing in the world that really had any meaning at all, the explosions that he created that cleansed the useless, unnecessary people from their so-called existence. As he climbed from the water and dried himself alchemically, he smirked at the bloody water rising to the surface; it was a wonderful night.


	12. Masks

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 19_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist**  
Pairing/Character(s): **Envy  
**Song: **"Phantom of the Opera," by Nightwish

**Song Excerpt:**  
Those who have seen your face draw back in fear  
I am the mask you wear

**Drabble:**  
Envy knew people were afraid of him; he acted specifically to make them be so. He has watched pathetic human after pathetic human try to pull away from him in revulsion and fear, screaming as they closed his eyes to block out his face, so intent on not seeing him that they didn't even realize he was going to kill them until it was too late.

He enjoyed that fear, that utter terror he saw scrawled across their faces when they realized they were helpless against him. He didn't look that threatening in his favorite form at first, but by the time word of his cruelties had spread the very mention of his strange green hair or sickly pale skin was enough to send even the most hardened man back to his mother.

Most of the time that was all well and good, but then there came the times that he needed to be able to walk among humans without them knowing who he was; it was then that he donned the mask of another, changing himself into whatever human suited him best. It was sickening sometimes, to have to wear the shells of mere mortal trash, but when all those who saw his face always drew back in fear he needed the anonymity and secrecy those masks gave him.


	13. To Die

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 20_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Maes  
**Song: **"Thriller," by Michael Jackson

**Song Excerpt:**  
It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark  
Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart  
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it  
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes  
You're paralyzed

**Drabble:**  
When Maes Hughes felt the bullet pierce his skin he couldn't understand it. He had just turned around and all the sudden his wife was standing there, a cold gun in her hand and hate in her eyes. Maes couldn't figure out what was happening, what this meant, but even as he tried to make some sound to ask what she was doing, he couldn't, the words caught in his throat.

He was frozen as he stared at her, paralyzed because his wife was pointing a gun at him, and then suddenly he watched as her finger pulled the trigger, then… The evil lurking in the dark stopped his heart.


	14. Real Lonliness

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 21_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Roy/Riza  
**Song: **"Say My Name," by Within Temptation

**Song Excerpt:**  
Say my name  
So I will know you're back, you're here again  
For a while  
Oh let us share  
The memories that only we can share  
Together

**Drabble:**  
No one, not even the Mustang Gang, knew they were a couple, but they were okay with that; it was the way things had to be. For years they met at different bars, different hotels, and different vehicles to get a chance to be together without others realizing that's what they were doing and every time they made love it was a feeling and a memory that both cherished.

It wasn't the best situation, after all as officer and subordinate they could never move in together or have children, but it could have been worse. They were content with the small smiles and glances at work, happy with the quiet dinners at one of their two homes, and at peace with the beauty of two human forms joining as one that they shared under the sheets.

Everything was good, everything was working out, but then came the day that he allowed himself to be shipped to the frontier, taken from the warmth of her arms and placed into the frigid grasp of snow and ice. From that day on, she was just as changed as he, lonely and alone even surrounded by people as she was.

She desperately wanted him to come back, wanted Roy to return to Central and become the man he once was again, come back and make things right again. He wanted to do the same, with all his heart he wanted to go home and feel Riza's lips pressed to his again but he couldn't, not right now. No matter how hard they both wished to be with the other, it wasn't going to happen.

But then suddenly the day came and she heard her name pass his lips, filling her with a warmth that she hadn't felt since he left. He watched as her eyes grew wide and then smiled himself as she broke into a soft, happy one. Riza was so happy to hear him say her name, so happy to know that he was back, and so happy to know that they could once again start making, and sharing, the memories they both longed for.

Roy felt the same way; her name tasted almost as good on his lips as her kisses did.


	15. Wouldn't Have Been This Way

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 24_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Maes/Roy  
**Song: **"Probably Wouldn't Be This Way," by LeAnn Rhymes.

**Song Excerpt:**  
I probably wouldn't be this way  
I probably wouldn't hurt so bad  
I never pictured every minute without you in it  
Oh, you left so fast

**Drabble:**

Roy had never meant to cheat on Maes; the thought had never crossed his mind and he never had any urge to sleep with someone else, but then Ishbal happened. Ishbal happened and suddenly, Roy couldn't deal with himself anymore. Ishbal happened and every breath he took hurt. Ishbal happened, and he couldn't live with himself anymore.

Then the night came that he had the smooth barrel of his gun pressed to his head, just about ready to pull the trigger. His finger was trembling over the release when Kimbley walked into the tent they shared; out of nowhere he suddenly felt the other alchemist gently pry the gun from his hand before lifting him to his feet and setting him on the edge of his bed.

When Kimbley knelt down in front of the suicidal man and told him that he couldn't do what he'd been trying to, Roy realized that he needed something, someone. So when Kimbley then touched Roy's thigh and said he could make it better the Flame Alchemist nodded, so vulnerable and hurt that he believed the other man when he said that he wouldn't tell Maes.

Back in Amestris now, laying alone in the bed that he had once shared with Maes, Roy couldn't help but let go of one dry sob; he had never pictured his life without the older man in it. If not for Kimbley and what happened in Ishbal, it wouldn't be this way it or at the very least it probably wouldn't hurt this bad, but Maes left so fast…


	16. Faking Life

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 25_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Rose  
**Song: **"Hemorrhage (In My Hands)," by Fuel

**Song Excerpt:**  
She cries her life is like  
Some movie black and white  
Dead actors faking lines  
Over and over and over again she cries

**Drabble:**  
Rose, when she was living in Lior, was peaceful and content for the most part, even if she did miss Kain every day. She was a beautiful and shining girl, full of life and the love of helping others. Everyone thought she would make a bright future for herself but then the battles happened and she was lost to the gunfire and screams, taken into the hands of an evil she had no control over.

When she was raped that first night she screamed until she no longer had a voice. Every night that followed the first grew a little quieter; her throat couldn't take the strain that her screams of terror and pain pushed through it. As her cries went quieter so too did her vision start to dim, the color being drained from it little by little every time the men touched her.

By the time she found out she was pregnant with one of the soldiers' children her whole world was black and white. Nothing was as beautiful as it had been, nothing shined like it used to, and most of all, nothing was right any longer. She was mute and blind, trapped in her own mind in an effort to escape from the harsh realities of her new life, but really, the escape wasn't working any longer.

She felt like she was trapped inside a box; her lips would move, but no one would hear her. She would reach out for a hand to hold, but no one would see her. She would cry at night, but no one would come to comfort her. It was as though everyone thought she was faking her lines and her movements and her emotions, but in truth they were the rawest, most real ones she had ever felt.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make herself stop crying, even if it was a sob with no sound.


	17. Fearless

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 26_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Maes/Roy  
**Song: **"(Don't Fear) The Reaper," by The Blue Oyster Cult

**Song Excerpt:**  
All our times have come  
Here but now they're gone  
Seasons don't fear the reaper  
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain  
We can be like they are

**Drabble:**  
It had taken years and the road was anything but easy, but as Roy stood on the steps of the new house he had just bought with Maes, he realized that it was worth it. The steps that had brought them here had been dangerous at times; the danger of being ostracized, discharged, or jailed ever present, but being together made those perils worth it, and after all, look at where they led.

Roy smiled and turned when he heard Maes call his name from the backyard of their new home, walking around the side of it to reach the small gate in the fence that surrounded it, "Yes?" With a small laugh he entered the yard when Maes gestured frantically, a big grin pasted over his features.

"Look, they left the dog house!" With pleading eyes, the older man turned to Roy, hope written across his face, "It's big and we can put bedding in it and it'll be comfortable… can we please get a dog now?" Maes had always wanted one, but the rules at their old apartment explicitly stated that no animals were allowed: now that the opportunity was ripe though, Maes looked about ready to beg for it.

Roy just nodded a little, holding back a soft smile at how eager Maes was. They had lived and loved so long in fear of what might happen to them, but now that time was gone. The seasons, the wind, the sun, and the rain… They did not fear the reaper and now, neither did Maes or Roy. It was time to live the life they had always wanted to, and they chose to live it just like nature did.

Fearless.


	18. All They Wrote

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 27_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Kimbley  
**Song: **"Lido Shuffle," by Boz Scaggs

**Song Excerpt:**  
Lido be runnin',  
Havin' great big fun 'til he got the note  
Sayin' "toe the line or blow it"  
And that was all she wrote

**Drabble:**  
When Kimbley first became a State Alchemist he knew that there were going to be rules involved with the job that they would expect him to follow. Regulations, army laws – shit like that to get in his way and make his job a lot less fun, but he was willing to deal with them because he knew when the battlefield was spread in front of him that those rules wouldn't mean anything.

The battles in Ishbal finally gave him the space he needed to tear those rules to shreds and tear them he did. Man, woman, and child fell before his alchemy, blow to pieces in the most inhuman ways he could think of. Kimbley couldn't think of anyplace he'd rather be than the arid desert, surrounded by the broken bodies and bloodied corpses of Ishballans who had stood no chance against him.

It was the best time of his life, Ishbal. Never before had he had so much fun, enjoyed himself as fully as he did while buried in the midst of murder, killing the enemy as well as his fellow soldiers – but then he got the note that said he had one chance to shape up and leave his own men out of the carnage or face a court marshal and jail time.

That was enough to make Kimbley blow his top; he had given so much to the state, helped them further their goals almost more than anyone else and here they were threatening him! Well, that was all they wrote by him and from then on the military casualties rose by the double and triple; he had had enough of being told what to do; now he was out for himself and himself alone.


	19. Some Sort Of Life

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 29_

**Fandom: **FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Lust/Scar  
**Song: **"Bring Me to Life," by Evanescence

**Song Excerpt:**  
Bring me to life  
(I've been living a lie  
There's nothing inside)  
Bring me to life

**Drabble:**  
Lust had always known that something was innately different about her, even before she knew that she was a homunculus and what that meant. The second she opened her perfectly shaped eyes and looked out over the first bit of the world she saw she could tell that something about her was wrong, even if she didn't know what it was at first.

When Dante first explained to her who and what she was Lust was confused and upset, saying that she didn't want to be a homunculus and that she didn't want to be different. Slowly though, she realized she had no choice in the matter; that was when she finally agreed to do as Dante asked and help search for the person who could make the Philosopher's Stone.

She tried for years to bring her Master's plan to fruition but no matter where the leads took her, she always ended up empty handed. Over all those years she had tried to convince herself that someday she would be human, that she had it in her to have a soul, to lead a real life with someone she loved and be happy, but even though on the outside it seemed as though she believed that with all of her, inside her mind was a whole different story.

But then her relationship with the scarred man suddenly grew without much warning at all and it was then that she realized fully what had been happening; Dante would never make her human, even if they had found her the stone; the homunculi were mere puppets to her. When that reality hit Lust full force it almost made her drop to her knees as she realized what it meant; all this time she had been living a lie.

It was that night that she went to Scar under the cover of darkness and lay with him even though she knew it was dangerous; she needed someone who would really bring her to life, even if it wasn't the life she had wanted at first.


	20. To Tell The Tale

_30 Day SongFic Drabble Challenge: Day 30_

**Fandom:** FullMetal Alchemist  
**Pairing/Character(s): **Hohenheim  
**Song:** "Live To Tell The Tale," by Nightwish.

**Song Excerpt:**  
An errant soul, homeless and foul  
All gone but the will to  
Live to tell the tale

**Drabble:**  
He had never wanted to leave his family, but in the end there were just some things that were unavoidable. It broke his heart as he kissed his wife's soft lips and caressed his young sons cheeks one more time, but it was the only way he had to say his silent goodbye. As he walked away from his house, the home he had built and truly lived in, a single tear fell; he knew how hard it would be for all of them come morning.

Hohenheim's body was deteriorating though, and it had been for years. His soul did not belong to this body, or this body to his soul, and the human vessel grew foul as it did what it could to reject his presence. Yet again the ancient man was homeless, without four walls around him or a body to keep him alive.

Years passed as he wandered farther and farther from Resembool and the whole while his mortal shell kept weakening and worsening. By the time his oldest son had grown to be fifteen, he was just about out of time, even if it didn't look it. He was sure Edward hated him and he didn't blame the boy, after all, he had left them, even if it wasn't really what he wanted to do.

Now, all Hohenheim had left was the need, the urge to go home and tell his son the real story; let him know the real truth of what happened before it was all too late. He only had the will left to tell the tale; then he would finally let nature take him like it had been trying for centuries.


End file.
